MIDNIGHT IN BEAUCHAMP ROW
It was the last house in Beauchamp Row, and it stood several rods awayfrom its nearest neighbour. It was a pretty house in the daytime, butowing to its deep, sloping roof and small bediamonded windows it had alonesome look at night, notwithstanding the crimson hall-light whichshone through the leaves of its vine-covered doorway.
Ned Chivers lived in it with his six months' married bride, and as hewas both a busy fellow and a gay one there were many evenings whenpretty Letty Chivers sat alone until near midnight.
She was of an uncomplaining spirit, however, and said little, thoughthere were times when both the day and evening seemed very long andmarried life not altogether the paradise she had expected.
On this evening--a memorable evening for her, the 24th of December,1911--she had expected her husband to remain with her, for it was notonly Christmas eve, but the night when, as manager of a largemanufacturing concern, he brought up from New York the money with whichto pay off the men on the next working day, and he never left her whenthere was any unusual amount of money in the house. But with the firstglimpse she had of his figure coming up the road she saw that for somereason it was not to be thus to-night, and, indignant, alarmed almost,at the prospect of a lonesome evening under such circumstances, she ranhastily down to the gate to meet him, crying:
"Oh, Ned, you look so troubled I know you have only come home for ahurried supper. But you cannot leave me to-night. Tennie" (their onlymaid) "has gone for a holiday, and I never can stay in this house alonewith all that." She pointed to the small bag he carried, which, as sheknew, was filled to bursting with bank notes.
He certainly looked troubled. It is hard to resist the entreaty in ayoung bride's uplifted face. But this time he could not help himself,and he said:
"I am dreadfully sorry, but I must ride over to Fairbanks to-night. Mr.Pierson has given me an imperative order to conclude a matter ofbusiness there, and it is very important that it should be done. Ishould lose my position if I neglected the matter, and no one butHasbrouck and Suffern knows that we keep the money in the house. I havealways given out that I intrusted it to Hale's safe over night."
"But I cannot stand it," she persisted. "You have never left me on thesenights. That is why I let Tennie go. I will spend the evening at TheLarches, or, better still, call in Mr. and Mrs. Talcott to keep mecompany."
But her husband did not approve of her going out or of her havingcompany. The Larches was too far away, and as for Mr. and Mrs. Talcott,they were meddlesome people, whom he had never liked; besides, Mrs.Talcott was delicate, and the night threatened storm. Let her go to bedlike a good girl, and think nothing about the money, which he would takecare to put away in a very safe place.
"Or," said he, kissing her downcast face, "perhaps you would rather hideit yourself; women always have curious ideas about such things."
"Yes, let me hide it," she entreated. "The money, I mean, not the bag.Every one knows the bag. I should never dare to leave it in that." Andbegging him to unlock it, she began to empty it with a feverish hastethat rather alarmed him, for he surveyed her anxiously and shook hishead as if he dreaded the effects of this excitement upon her.
But as he saw no way out of the difficulty, he confined himself to usingsuch soothing words as were at his command, and then, humouring herweakness, helped her to arrange the bills in the place she had chosen,and restuffing the bag with old receipts till it acquired its formerdimensions, he put a few bills on top to make the whole look natural,and, laughing at her white face, relocked the bag and put the key backin his pocket.
"There, dear; a notable scheme and one that should relieve your mindentirely!" he cried. "If any one should attempt burglary in my absenceand should succeed in getting into a house as safely locked as this willbe when I leave it, then trust to their being satisfied when they seethis booty, which I shall hide where I always hide it--in the cupboardover my desk."
"And when will you be back?" she questioned, trembling in spite ofherself at these preparations.
"By one o'clock if possible. Certainly by two."
"And our neighbours go to bed at ten," she murmured. But the words werelow, and she was glad he did not hear them, for if it was his duty toobey the orders he had received, then it was her duty to meet theposition in which it left her as bravely as she could.
At supper she was so natural that his face rapidly brightened, and itwas with quite an air of cheerfulness that he rose at last to lock upthe house and make such preparations as were necessary for his dismalride over the mountains to Fairbanks. She had the supper dishes to washup in Tennie's absence, and as she was a busy little housewife she foundherself singing a snatch of song as she passed back and forth fromdining-room to kitchen. He heard it, too, and smiled to himself as hebolted the windows on the ground floor and examined the locks of thethree lower doors, and when he finally came into the kitchen with hisgreatcoat on to give her his final kiss, he had but one partinginjunction to urge, and this was for her to lock and bolt the front doorafter him and then forget the whole matter till she heard his doubleknock at midnight.
She smiled and held up her ingenuous face.
"Be careful of yourself," she begged of him. "I hate this dark ride foryou, and on such a night too." And she ran with him to the door to lookout.
"It is certainly very dark," he responded, "but I'm to have one ofBrown's safest horses. Do not worry about me. I shall do well enough,and so will you, too, or you are not the plucky little woman I havealways thought you."
She laughed, but there was a choking sound in her voice that made himlook at her again. But at sight of his anxiety she recovered herself,and pointing to the clouds said earnestly:
"It's going to snow. Be careful as you ride by the gorge, Ned; it isvery deceptive there in a snowstorm."
But he vowed that it would not snow before morning and giving her onefinal embrace he dashed down the path toward Brown's livery stable. "Oh,what is the matter with me?" she murmured to herself as his steps diedout in the distance. "I never knew I was such a coward." And she pausedfor a moment, looking up and down the road, as if in despite of herhusband's command she had the desperate idea of running away to someneighbour.
But she was too loyal for that, and smothering a sigh she retreated intothe house. As she did so the first flakes fell of the storm that was notto have come till morning.
It took her an hour to get her kitchen in order, and nine o'clock struckbefore she was ready to sit down. She had been so busy she had notnoticed how the wind had increased or how rapidly the snow was falling.But when she went to the front door for another glance up and down theroad she started back, appalled at the fierceness of the gale and atthe great pile of snow that had already accumulated on the doorstep.
Too delicate to breast such a wind, she saw herself robbed of her lasthope of any companionship, and sighing heavily she locked and bolted thedoor for the night and went back into her little sitting-room, where agreat fire was burning. Here she sat down, and determined, since shemust pass the evening alone, to do it as cheerfully as possible, shebegan to sew. "Oh, what a Christmas eve!" she thought, as a picture ofother homes rose before her eyes,--homes in which husbands sat by wivesand brothers by sisters; and a great wave of regret poured over her anda longing for something, she hardly dared say what, lest her unhappinessshould acquire a sting that would leave traces beyond the passingmoment.
The room in which she sat was the only one on the ground floor exceptthe dining-room and kitchen. It therefore was used both as parlour andsitting-room, and held not only her piano, but her husband's desk.
Communicating with it was the tiny dining-room. Between the two,however, was an entry leading to a side entrance. A lamp was in thisentry, and she had left it burning, as well as the one in the kitchen,that the house might look cheerful and as if the whole family were athome.
She was looking toward this entry and wondering what made it seem sodismally dark to her, when there came a faint sound from t
he door atits further end.
Knowing that her husband must have taken peculiar pains with thefastenings of this door, as it was the one toward the woods andtherefore most accessible to wayfarers, she sat where she was, with allher faculties strained to listen. But no further sound came from thatdirection, and after a few minutes of silent terror she was allowingherself to believe that she had been deceived by her fears when shesuddenly heard the same sound at the kitchen door, followed by a muffledknock.
Frightened now in good earnest, but still alive to the fact that theintruder was as likely to be a friend as foe, she stepped to the door,and with her hand on the lock stooped and asked boldly enough who wasthere. But she received no answer, and more affected by this unexpectedsilence than by the knock she had heard, she recoiled farther andfarther till not only the width of the kitchen, but the dining-roomalso, lay between her and the scene of her alarm, when to her utterconfusion the noise shifted again to the side of the house, and the doorshe thought so securely fastened, swung violently open as if blown in bya fierce gust, and she saw precipitated into the entry the burly figureof a man covered with snow and shaking with the violence of the stormthat seemed at once to fill the house.
Her first thought was that it was her husband come back, but before shecould clear her eyes from the snow which had rushed tumultuously in, hehad thrown off his outer covering and she found herself face to facewith a man in whose powerful frame and cynical visage she saw little tocomfort her and much to surprise and alarm.
"Ugh!" was his coarse and rather familiar greeting. "A hard night,missus! Enough to drive any man indoors. Pardon the liberty, but Icouldn't wait for you to lift the latch; the wind drove me right in."
"Was--was not the door locked?" she feebly asked, thinking he must havestaved it in with his foot, which was certainly well fitted for such atask.
"Not much," he chuckled. "I s'pose you're too hospitable for that." Andhis eyes passed from her face to the comfortable firelight shiningthrough the sitting-room.
"Is it refuge you want?" she demanded, suppressing as much as possibleall signs of fear.
"Sure, missus--what else! A man can't live in a gale like that,specially after a tramp of twenty miles or more. Shall I shut the doorfor you?" he asked, with a mixture of bravado and good nature thatfrightened her more and more.
"I will shut it," she replied, with a half notion of escaping thissinister stranger by a flight through the night.
But one glance into the swirling snowstorm deterred her, and making thebest of the alarming situation, she closed the door, but did not lockit, being now more afraid of what was inside the house than of anythingleft lingering without.
The man, whose clothes were dripping with water, watched her with acynical smile, and then, without any invitation, entered thedining-room, crossed it, and moved toward the kitchen fire.
"Ugh! ugh! But it is warm here!" he cried, his nostrils dilating with ananimal-like enjoyment, that in itself was repugnant to her womanlydelicacy. "Do you know, missus, I shall have to stay here all night?Can't go out in that gale again; not such a fool." Then with a sly lookat her trembling form and white face he insinuatingly added, "All alone,missus?"
The suddenness with which this was put, together with the leer thataccompanied it, made her start. Alone? Yes, but should she acknowledgeit? Would it not be better to say that her husband was upstairs? The manevidently saw the struggle going on in her mind, for he chuckled tohimself and called out quite boldly:
"Never mind, missus; it's all right. Just give me a bit of cold meat anda cup of tea or something, and we'll be very comfortable together.You're a slender slip of a woman to be minding a house like this. I'llkeep you company if you don't mind, leastwise until the storm lets up abit, which ain't likely for some hours to come. Rough night, missus,rough night."
"I expect my husband home at any time," she hastened to say. Andthinking she saw a change in the man's countenance at this she put onquite an air of sudden satisfaction and bounded toward the front of thehouse. "There! I think I hear him now," she cried.
Her motive was to gain time, and if possible to obtain the opportunityof shifting the money from the place where she had first put it intoanother and safer one. "I want to be able," she thought, "to swear thatI have no money with me in this house. If I can only get it into myapron I will drop it outside the door into the snowbank. It will be assafe there as in the vaults it came from." And dashing into thesitting-room she made a feint of dragging down a shawl from a screen,while she secretly filled her skirt with the bills which had been putbetween some old pamphlets on the bookshelves.
She could hear the man grumbling in the kitchen, but he did not followher front, and taking advantage of the moment's respite from his nonetoo encouraging presence she unbarred the door and cheerfully called outher husband's name.
The ruse was successful. She was enabled to fling the notes where thefalling flakes would soon cover them from sight, and feeling morecourageous, now that the money was out of the house, she went slowlyback, saying she had made a mistake, and that it was the wind she hadheard.
The man gave a gruff but knowing guffaw and then resumed his watch overher, following her steps as she proceeded to set him out a meal, with apersistency that reminded her of a tiger just on the point of springing.But the inviting look of the viands with which she was rapidly settingthe table soon distracted his attention, and allowing himself one gruntof satisfaction, he drew up a chair and set himself down to what to himwas evidently a most savoury repast.
"No beer? No ale? Nothing o' that sort, eh? Don't keep a bar?" hegrowled, as his teeth closed on a huge hunk of bread.
She shook her head, wishing she had a little cold poison bottled up in atight-looking jug.
"Nothing but tea," she smiled, astonished at her own ease of manner inthe presence of this alarming guest.
"Then let's have that," he grumbled, taking the bowl she handed him,with an odd look that made her glad to retreat to the other side of theroom.
"Jest listen to the howling wind," he went on between the huge mouthfulsof bread and cheese with which he was gorging himself. "But we're verycomfortable, we two! We don't mind the storm, do we?"
Shocked by his familiarity and still more moved by the look of mingledinquiry and curiosity with which his eyes now began to wander over thewalls and cupboards, she hurried to the window overlooking her nearestneighbour, and, lifting the shade, peered out. A swirl of snowflakesalone confronted her. She could neither see her neighbours, nor couldshe be seen by them. A shout from her to them would not be heard. Shewas as completely isolated as if the house stood in the centre of adesolate western plain.
"I have no trust but in God," she murmured as she came from the window.And, nerved to meet her fate, she crossed to the kitchen.
It was now half-past ten. Two hours and a half must elapse before herhusband could possibly arrive.
She set her teeth at the thought and walked resolutely into the room.
"Are you done?" she asked.
"I am, ma'am," he leered. "Do you want me to wash the dishes? I kin, andI will." And he actually carried his plate and cup to the sink, where heturned the water upon them with another loud guffaw.
"If only his fancy would take him into the pantry," she thought, "Icould shut and lock the door upon him and hold him prisoner till Nedgets back."
But his fancy ended its flight at the sink, and before her hopes hadfully subsided he was standing on the threshold of the sitting-roomdoor.
"It's pretty here," he exclaimed, allowing his eye to rove again overevery hiding-place within sight. "I wonder now----" He stopped. Hisglance had fallen on the cupboard over her husband's desk.
"Well?" she asked, anxious to break the thread of his thought, which wasonly too plainly mirrored in his eager countenance.
He started, dropped his eyes, and, turning, surveyed her with amomentary fierceness. But, as she did not let her own glance quail, butcontinued to meet his gaze with what she meant for an
ingratiatingsmile, he subdued this outward manifestation of passion, and, chucklingto hide his embarrassment, began backing into the entry, leering inevident enjoyment of the fears he caused.
However, once in the hall, he hesitated for a long time; then slowlymade for the garment he had dropped on entering, and stooping, drew fromunderneath its folds a wicked-looking stick. Giving a kick to the coat,which sent it into a remote corner, he bestowed upon her another smile,and still carrying the stick, went slowly and reluctantly away into thekitchen.
"Oh, God Almighty, help me!" was her prayer.
There was nothing left for her now but to endure, so throwing herselfinto a chair, she tried to calm the beating of her heart and summon upcourage for the struggle which she felt was before her. That he had cometo rob and only waited to take her off her guard she now felt certain,and rapidly running over in her mind all the expedients of self-defencepossible to one in her situation, she suddenly remembered the pistolwhich Ned kept in his desk.
Oh, why had she not thought of it before! Why had she let herself growmad with terror when here, within reach of her hand, lay such a means ofself-defence? With a feeling of joy (she had always hated pistols beforeand scolded Ned when he bought this one) she started to her feet andslid her hand into the drawer. But it came back empty. Ned had takenthe weapon away with him.
For a moment, a surge of the bitterest feeling she had ever experiencedpassed over her; then she called reason to her aid and was obliged toacknowledge that the act was but natural, and that from his standpointhe was much more likely to need it than herself. But the disappointment,coming so soon after hope, unnerved her, and she sank back in her chair,giving herself up for lost.
How long she sat there with her eyes on the door through which shemomentarily expected her assailant to reappear, she never knew. She wasconscious only of a sort of apathy that made movement difficult and evenbreathing a task. In vain she tried to change her thoughts. In vain shetried to follow her husband in fancy over the snow-covered roads andinto the gorge of the mountains. Imagination failed her at this point.Do what she would, all was misty to her mind's eye, and she could notsee that wandering image. There was blankness between his form and her,and no life or movement anywhere but here in the scene of her terror.
Her eyes were on a strip of rug covering the entry floor, and so strangewas the condition of her mind that she found herself mechanicallycounting the tassels finishing off its edge, growing wroth over one thatwas worn, till she hated that sixth tassel and mentally determined thatif she ever outlived this night she would strip them all off and be donewith them.
The wind had lessened, but the air had grown cooler and the snow made asharp sound where it struck the panes. She felt it falling, though shehad cut off all view of it. It seemed to her that a pall was settlingover the world and that she would soon be smothered under its folds.
Meanwhile no sound came from the kitchen. A dreadful sense of doom wascreeping upon her--a sense growing in intensity till she found herselfwatching for the shadow of that lifted stick on the wall of the entryand almost imagined she saw the tip of it appearing.
But it was the door which again blew in, admitting another man of sothreatening an aspect that she succumbed instantly before him and forgotall her former fears in this new terror.
The second intruder was a negro of powerful frame and lowering aspect,and as he came forward and stood in the doorway there was observable inhis fierce and desperate countenance no attempt at the insinuation ofthe other, only a fearful resolution that made her feel like a puppetbefore him, and drove her, almost without her volition, to her knees.
"Money? Is it money you want?" was her desperate greeting. "If so,here's my purse and here are my rings and watch. Take them and go."
But the stolid wretch did not even stretch out his hands. His eyes wentbeyond her, and the mingled anxiety and resolve which he displayed wouldhave cowed a stouter heart than that of this poor woman.
"Keep de trash," he growled. "I want de company's money. You've gotit--two thousand dollars. Show me where it is, that's all, and I won'ttrouble you long after I close on it."
"But it's not in the house," she cried. "I swear it is not in the house.Do you think Mr. Chivers would leave me here alone with two thousanddollars to guard?"
But the negro, swearing that she lied, leaped into the room, and tearingopen the cupboard above her husband's desk, seized the bag from thecorner where they had put it.
"He brought it in this," he muttered, and tried to force the bag open,but finding this impossible he took out a heavy knife and cut a big holein its side. Instantly there fell out the pile of old receipts withwhich they had stuffed it, and seeing these he stamped with rage, andflinging them at her in one great handful, rushed to the drawers below,emptied them, and, finding nothing, attacked the bookcase.
"The money is somewhere here. You can't fool me," he yelled. "I saw thespot your eyes lit on when I first came into the room. Is it behindthese books?" he growled, pulling them out and throwing themhelter-skelter over the floor. "Women is smart in the hiding business.Is it behind these books, I say?"
They had been, or rather had been placed between the books, but she hadtaken them away, as we know, and he soon began to realise that hissearch was bringing him nothing. Leaving the bookcase he gave the booksone kick, and seizing her by the arm, shook her with a murderous glareon his strange and distorted features.
"Where's the money?" he hissed. "Tell me, or you are a goner."
He raised his heavy fist. She crouched and all seemed over, when, with arush and cry, a figure dashed between them and he fell, struck down bythe very stick she had so long been expecting to see fall upon her ownhead. The man who had been her terror for hours had at the moment ofneed acted as her protector.
* * * * *
She must have fainted, but if so, her unconsciousness was but momentary,for when she woke again to her surroundings she found the tramp stillstanding over her adversary.
"I hope you don't mind, ma'am," he said, with an air of humbleness shecertainly had not seen in him before, "but I think the man's dead." Andhe stirred with his foot the heavy figure before him.
"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried. "That would be too fearful. He's shocked,stunned; you cannot have killed him."
But the tramp was persistent. "I'm 'fraid I have," he said. "I done itbefore. I'm powerful strong in the biceps. But I couldn't see a man ofthat colour frighten a lady like you. My supper was too warm in me,ma'am. Shall I throw him outside the house?"
"Yes," she said, and then, "No; let us first be sure there is no lifein him." And, hardly knowing what she did, she stooped down and peeredinto the glassy eyes of the prostrate man.
Suddenly she turned pale--no, not pale, but ghastly, and cowering back,shook so that the tramp, into whose features a certain refinement hadpassed since he had acted as her protector, thought she had discoveredlife in those set orbs, and was stooping down to make sure that this wasso, when he saw her suddenly lean forward and, impetuously plunging herhand into the negro's throat, tear open the shirt and give one look athis bared breast.
It was white.
"O God! O God!" she moaned, and lifting the head in her two hands shegave the motionless features a long and searching look. "Water!" shecried. "Bring water." But before the now obedient tramp could respond,she had torn off the woolly wig disfiguring the dead man's head, andseeing the blond curls beneath had uttered such a shriek that it roseabove the gale and was heard by her distant neighbours.
It was the head and hair of her husband.
* * * * *
They found out afterwards that he had contemplated this theft formonths; that each and every precaution necessary to the success of thismost daring undertaking had been made use of and that but for theunexpected presence in the house of the tramp, he would doubtless notonly have extorted the money from his wife, but have so covered up thedeed by a plausible alibi as to have retain
ed her confidence and that ofhis employers.
Whether the tramp killed him out of sympathy for the defenceless womanor in rage at being disappointed in his own plans has never beendetermined. Mrs. Chivers herself thinks he was actuated by a rude sortof gratitude.
Room Number 3, and Other Detective Stories Page 2